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Posture Workshop - Stance

As with almost any activity we need to be balanced and the best way to do this is stand with your feet shoulder with apart. Be relaxed! Loosen off your shoulders and do a little stretching before you play, it's amazing how much being relaxed helps your breathing and your Saxophone Tone.

Hand positioning

Let your hands dangle freely by your sides... if you look down you'll will see a slight curve in your hand shape, this shape is ideal for Saxophone playing. Adolph Sax thought of this in his design for the Saxophone, your natural hand shape is designed to be used for playing!

Right Hand

With this in mind, clip the neck strap into the holding pin just above the Right Hand thumb rest. Now, take your right hand and using that natural shape place the fat part of your right hand thumb under the thumb rest and let your natural hand shape reach round and place your index finger, middle finger and ring finger (RH 123) on the pearl keys as shown in the video. Naturally your right hand should avoid the knuckle keys at the side of the saxophone and allow you to press the keys without nudging any others. Allow your little finger (pinky) to rest upon the two pads at the bottom of the saxophone (these are the Eb and Low C keys). Avoid pressing any keys other than the pearls, for now.

Left Hand

Whilst holding the Saxophone in position with your Right hand allow your left hand to once again dangle loosely by your side. With this shape firmly in mind, place your thumb flat against the thumb rest next to the octave key. Bear in mind that you will be using the tip of your thumb to press the octave key later so you need to have your thumb far enough across so that you can press this key with the tip. Do not rest your thumb too far across so that it overhands the pad and octave key! With a rounded hand shape you should be able to avoid pressing any of the palm keys around the side of the instrument and place your fingers on the pearl keys like this: Miss the top pearl key(sometimes this is also a spatula key) place your first finger on the second pearl key, skip the smaller key (the Bis key) so that you're middle finger rests on the next largest key and place your ring finger on the lowest pearl key. Your little finger should rest upon the top key on the pad at the side of the Saxophone, we will use this for G# and low notes later!